TGI Freyja

A few weeks back, I had promised the kids if they behaved during mass there would be a treat in it for them. No, I am not above bribery, thankyouverymuch. In fact, if a crack and whore party were to get them to actually listen to the homily, I'd spring for that, too. Fortunately, it hasn't come to that... yet.

As I am trying, sometimes in vain, to eliminate the chemicals and crap from our diets, I did not want the treat to be some food item. As I am also attempting to teach my children respect for the planet and conservation and to eschew the needless, endless cycle of American consumerism, I did not want their reward to be cheap, plastic toy that would only end up in a landfill in a few months time. Those who are thinking that the reward for behaving properly in mass should be the spiritual satisfaction of an hour of worthy worship either do not have very young children or their children are future men and women of the cloth. I myself am raising demon spawn.

So with this in mind, when I saw a sign at PetsMart that read "German Shepherd Rescue Today" I thought I had found the perfect treat: pet the dogs at PetsMart. With two dogs already, we certainly were not in the market for another dog. But it is always fun to pet dogs.

Yay! Everyone was happy! Loving on homeless dogs! No junk food! No Chinese crap toys! Pure, free fun! I'm a genius!


And then we saw her. I saw her first. Then Mike. This familiar looking pup, black and tan, with soulful eyes and a bashful personality. I asked the person holding her leash what she was called.

"Betsy," he told me.

I squatted down to introduce myself to Betsy and I knew, I just knew that she was mine. She looked so much like my Alyx and her personality was also a match. I insisted Mike come and meet her, too. He fell as hard as I did.

But being the responsible, sane, rational people that we are, we dragged ourselves away and drove home... with thoughts of Betsy on our minds.

"What are you thinking about," he asked me.

"None of your business," I snapped.

We weren't home ten minutes when we loaded the kids back into the car and sped back to the PetsMart to fill out adoption papers and give them a $10 deposit.

Now, I will tell you, the application process for these rescues in comically complicated. I've had many people say to me that it seems more difficult to adopt a dog than a child. I assure you, this is not the case. It is far, far more difficult to adopt a child. But, it is still unbelievably difficult. I had to provide three local references. Our dogs veterinarians had to be contacted and their shot records had to be released. We had to have our home and yard inspected.

All the while we were told, "We will match you with your dream dog as soon as you are approved."

Ummm... no. No matching us with our dream dog. We are only interested in Betsy.

"Yes, yes. We will match with the best dog for you and your family."

But, as it had only been a few days and we really are good dog people, I assumed it would be fine. I mean, we had been very specific on our application that we only wanted Betsy. Very specific.

Our home visit was on a Sunday and when I didn't hear from my case worker (yes, people! The Doggy Rescue provides you a case worker! Don't ya love it?) by Tuesday night, I emailed her and asked when we'd be able to bring Betsy home.

This was her response: "Oh, sorry for the confusion. You were interested in Betsy but Betsy got a new home last weekend. Is there anyone else you'd like to meet or are you planning to attend the Pet Expo this weekend."

I was totally, utterly, devastatingly crushed. We all were. It was like a funeral around here. We were in love. We had already adopted her in our hearts. I had even made Betsy's picture the wallpaper on my computer. And we'd lost her. I was told that that is how all rescues operate and that the mistake we made was falling in love with a dog prior to approval.

Huh? Since when are adoptions like arranged marriages? And who are these people to match me with my dream dog? They don't know me. Sure, they know my dogs' health histories, they know I have a dirty laundry hamper in my kitchen, and that I have a bunch of dead grass in my back yard. Sure they have the phone numbers of three of my friends and the ages of my kids. But they don't really know me. How could they match me with my dream dog?

Mike raged against the machine and I emailed our case worker to remind them that we weren't interested in any other dogs.


And yet, she still emailed me about dogs. Last weekend, while in southern Illinois for my nephew's first communion, she sent me this picture of "Misty," an obviously boy dog with a girl's name. When asked, my case worker got on the case and phoned around before emailing me back that they are totally, 100% certain Misty is a girl.

So now I've got this hermaphroditic puppy being offered to me as my dream dog. What the hell does that say about me? I mean, I'm all for mixing it up in the bedroom to spice up a seemingly endless 50+ years of unceasing monogamy, but how the hell do they know that? And we don't do dogs, hermaphroditic or otherwise. In fact, animals are out of the bedroom when there is spice of any kind going on. So how exactly is this a match?

But, being the sport I am, I play along and try to schedule a meeting with our transgendered Misty. I then get this email:

"I've talked to the puppy's foster and she doesn't feel the puppy would be a good fit for you. The puppy had been returned twice to the shelter because of nipping young children and is already nipping the foster's teenager.

Sorry, but I don't think it's going to work."

Well, of course, we don't want a nipper. But if you've ever had a puppy, you know that there is nipping and there is mouthing. They are two very separate things. I wanted to make sure that this was actual nipping they were talking about. Before I could follow up, however, I received an email from another person in the rescue group. We'll call her Kay. Kay tells me that she will be picking up a puppy that I might be interested in. So I emailed my case worker and she tells me that Kay's dog and the Divine Miss Misty are one and the same hermaphroditic nipper. I then email Kay and explain that we are not interested in Misty as she is a nipper to which Kay tells me she doesn't know who Misty is, but she picked up a sweet and beautiful pup called Amelia who "is just a baby and only doing baby things, mouthing because she still has her baby teeth." She gave me the name of the foster taking care of Amelia and I emailed her.

Are you still with me because it gets even more confusing.

The foster emails me and tells me that she too has never heard of Misty but she does have an adorable puppy called Amelia. Unfortunately, she doesn't think we should meet Amelia as Amelia is a nipper (but not most assuredly does NOT have a penis). Oh, and she added her confusion that we would even be interested in adopting from us as we had taken our name off the list of approved adopters.

Holy Mary! Pray for us!

My head was spinning at this point. The emails were coming in and out of my account at a rate that kept me pinned to my laptop. It honestly was the most entertainment I've had in a long time. Like a bad novel, I just could not read fast enough to get to the end and put myself out of misery!


And then, in the midst of chaos, came an email from an angel. She explained that she was fostering a pup called Misty but that she felt "Misty" wasn't a name befitting a German Shepherd so she had been using the name "Freyja" instead. She wrote a nice, long email about Freyja, her personality, her brief history, and her health. When I questioned the state of her sex, she sent me a picture and assured me that upon close up inspection, there weren't any surprise parts hiding in the recesses of Freyja's vagina.

To make a long story slightly abbreviated (What? You think I don't already know I'm long winded?), we are now the proud parents of a bouncing baby German Shepherd Dog called Freyja (say it with me now, FRAY-uh). We kept the name, partly because it is a very cool name (Freyja is the main Goddess in Norse Paganism and is the Goddess for whom "Friday" is named after) and partly to honor the couple, Danielle and Jeremy, who fostered her.

In one short week, they took a puppy who had lived her whole, be it brief, life outside and taught her how to behave in a home. Although covered in mud and fecal matter, they bathed her in their tub and loved her despite the smell. They took her to the vet and gave her medicine. They held their breath while she slept, afraid that perhaps they were too late in her rescue and she might slip away to the Rainbow Bridge. She is a wonderful dog, really, and we have a lot to thank her fosters for in that. A true mitzvah. They rescued a member of our family and for that we are indebted to them and eternally grateful.

So, stay tuned for Freyja tales. There are bound to be many.